Eighty-five years ago, World War II began; the Holocaust had begun earlier, and the Nazi plan of the Final Solution was implemented in 1942.
Eighty-five years ago, the world turned its back on the Jewish people. Many countries in Europe welcomed the Nazis, and many locals supported the Nazis. Some countries declared “neutrality.”
The British implemented the White Paper of 1939, which prevented Jews who sought refuge in Palestine from immigrating. The US and Canada refused to allow most Jewish refugees to seek safety in their territory. The leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Amin al Husseini, moved to Berlin to support the Nazis.
Today, those who support the Iranian proxies such as Hamas, PIJ, and Hezbollah, and support anti-Israel demonstrations, are calling for another Holocaust, destroying the State of Israel, and the two-state solution (2SS) – a Palestinian state led by terrorist organizations. The international community, especially the UN and the EU, have joined these efforts. This is a world war against the Jewish people and Israel, supported by most Muslim countries and Muslim authorities.
Something nightmarish: Israel accused of perpetrating a Holocaust
Something nightmarish is happening. As Jews are fighting a war of self-defense against Hamas, the PLO, and other terrorist organizations, Israel is accused of genocide, war crimes, and perpetrating a Holocaust against the Arabs in Gaza. Israel is accused of deliberately killing innocent civilians, and is compared to Nazis. The accusers are joined by non-Muslims in demonstrations against Israel, calling US President Joe Biden “Genocide Joe” for sending weapons to Israel. Many countries, organizations, and the media call for a “ceasefire” in the war against Hamas, and the 2SS which justifies their atrocities and will ensure their claims of victory.
Eighty-five years ago, World War II was launched against the Nazis; today, the world sees Israel as the enemy.
Ironically, as the world briefly turns its attention to the greatest human tragedy in modern history on Holocaust Remembrance Day, there is growing Jew-hatred and condemnations of Israel around the globe. Why?
As the modern representation of the Jewish people as a state and society, Israel is an easily identifiable target for Jew-haters, and they don’t have to use traditional anti-Jewish tropes. Condemning Israel for “occupying Palestinian territory,” “persecuting Palestinians,” and “denying Palestinians human and civil rights” is considered to be immoral and illegal, even by some Israelis. By extension, the blame applies to Jews and especially Zionists.
Most Arabs and Palestinians contend that Israel’s establishment caused the Nakba (catastrophe), the loss of Arab Muslim territory, displacing thousands of Arabs who became refugees – most of whom live in UNRWA-supported towns and villages in Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan. Their “right of return” is an essential part of Palestinian identity and Palestinianism.
Support for Palestinianism, whose goal is to destroy Israel, has become a moral imperative, although it would entail genocide, another Holocaust. Palestinianism also links the loss of Arab Muslim hegemony in what was called Palestine in the British Mandate by claiming that local Arabs (who were not called Palestinians then) were victims of Jews who emigrated from Europe before and after WW II. Palestinianism also includes Holocaust denial and denying the role that Arab leaders, such as Amin el-Husseini and his Muslim Brotherhood, played in supporting the Nazi regime.
The Muslim Brotherhood (MB), a global organization dedicated to Israel’s destruction and promoting its version on Islam, has hundreds of branches throughout North America, especially in campus student organizations. In Gaza, the MB is the parent of Hamas. In Israel, the MB is represented in the Knesset.
Although Iran and its proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah, are existential threats to Israel, the Biden administration has offered conditional acceptance. Israel’s rejection of these plans is seen by many as an obstacle to a “peace process.” Many countries have called for the two-state solution as part of its support for an independent Palestinian state which would be led by terrorist organizations.
The PLO, Hamas, PLFP, PIJ, and other terrorist organizations dedicated to Israel’s destruction have made this clear in their founding documents. Yet, the PLO – as the Palestinian Authority (PA) – enjoys diplomatic and financial support from the Biden administration (as it did from Obama). The PA/PLO regularly posts anti-Israel and anti-Jewish diatribes which are seen worldwide.
Attempts to explain the rise in anti-Israelism in Europe and around the world ignore its historical roots in Jew-hatred. For nearly two millennia, European society and culture have been shaped by the Catholic church, and for the last 500 years by Protestant churches, especially by its founder, Martin Luther. It is not surprising, therefore, that most European countries declared their neutrality in WW II, and several embraced pro-Nazi regimes. Although these churches renounced their anti-Jewish traditions and teaching in the 1960s, the influence of centuries of bigotry remains a cultural legacy.
The result was a schizophrenic ambivalence about what Christianity stood for. Rejecting Luther’s Jew-hatred, for example, did not and could not prevent people from reading what he wrote about Jews. He was, after all, and still is, a revered figure. This explains what became a culture of Jew-hatred and the demonization of Jews.
Grounded in theological beliefs, such as communion, the sacraments, and eucharist, representing the ingestion of “the body and blood of Jesus,” and blaming Jews for the torture and death of Jesus, such beliefs and rituals affect how people think about Jews.
Europe’s history of Jew-hatred explains why EU countries have squandered billions of euros to support the PLO, Hamas, and Palestinian NGOs which directly and indirectly support terrorism and Israel’s demise.
As Rafael Medoff exposes in his book The Jews Should Keep Quiet, FDR’s administration, especially the State Department, refused to rescue Jews or even bomb the rail lines to Auschwitz.
In Antisemitism: The Longest Hatred, Robert Wistrich wrote:
“Without the irrational beliefs inculcated by centuries of Christian dogma – reinforced by xenophobic nationalist and Germanic racial mythology – Hitler’s anti-Semitism and the echo which it found throughout Europe would have been inconceivable.”
In his book Holy Hatred; Christianity, Antisemitism and the Holocaust, Robert Michael wrote:
“Christianity’s precise influence on the Holocaust cannot be determined, and Christian churches did not themselves perpetrate the Final Solution. But two millennia of Christian ideas and prejudices, their impact on Christian behavior, appear to be the major basis of antisemitism and the apex of antisemitism, the Holocaust...The “deicidal” Jews became the archetypal evildoers in Christian societies. This anti-Jewish attitude became a permanent element in the fundamental identity of Western civilization.”
One of the best analyses of this issue and the sources is Ben Zion Bokser’s Judaism and the Christian Predicament. He wrote:
“The rise of the state of Israel has also shaken a basic dogma in the conventional Christian stereotype of the Jew…The conventional Christian dogma saw the destruction of the Jewish state and the dispersion of Jews as a merited punishment for their rejection of Christianity. Their fated condition was to be wandering, persecuted strangers everywhere, and by their condition to confirm their guilt for having rejected Jesus. The restoration of the state of Israel, without prior conversion by the Jews to Christianity, contradicts this dogma and brings into question a basic conventional interpretation of Jewish destiny.”
Jew-hatred in Islam is explored in Robert Spencer’s The Complete Infidel’s Guide to the Koran; Andrew Bostom’s The Legacy of Anti-Semitism in Islam; and Matthias Kuntzel’s Jihad and Jew-Hatred: Islamism, Nazism, and the Roots of 9/11.
Why has Jew-hatred lasted for so long? The answer is in the Torah, the Prophets, sages, and The Book of Esther. It’s in the Talmud and in the work of historian Josephus Flavius and philosopher Philo. It was taught in the yeshivot of Rabbis Akiva, Hillel, and Shammai; it’s in the Book of Maccabees during the Jewish War against paganism; it’s in works of Jewish philosophers such as Saadia Gaon, Rambam (Maimonides), and the Ramban (Nachmanides) during the medieval period, and Jewish philosophers and historians ever since: Uniquely, the Jewish people believe in one God, ethical monotheism, and the right of the Jewish people to its homeland in Eretz Yisrael. That’s our ethos; that’s what Judaism teaches. ■
The writer is a historian who lives in Jerusalem.